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Thursday, May 15, 2014

Bygone Splendor: Eleuthera’s Royal Island

What do, former Hall-of-Fame the Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger
Staubach Jack Nicklaus and 1930s doctor W.P. Stewart have in common?

Great vision followed by luxury in ruins on lovely Royal Island,
Bahamas.

Where in the world is Royal
Island?

Semi-remote and certainly
private, it’s four miles off of North Eleuthera, and 37 miles northeast of
Nassau. For those not lucky enough to sail there like us, getting there typically
entails taking a commercial flight airport from Miami, Fort Lauderdale or
Nassau to North Eleuthera, followed by a 15-minute boat ride. A five mile long,
430 acre private island, Royal Island features 15 miles of coastline – a
perfect getaway.

Calling card left from another cruiser who

bellied up to the bar at W. P. Stewart’s

Royal Island estate.

Thus, back in the 1930s, wealthy island owner doc W. P. Stewart
built a fabulous private estate as a fishing retreat -- an excuse to get away
from his wife, and drink with his fishing buddies, according to “bahamas4u.”The site’s long since fallen into
glorious ruin.

“Belly up to the bar,” suggested Ann, aka Krazy Lady, who toured
the ruins right before us.“The
guy who built that place sure had vision.”

We did indeed check out the bar, as well as the rest of the
grounds, and wholeheartedly agree with Krazy Lady’s assessment.

This is the great room on the estate
that Wayne figured

would be worth cleaning up for a cruiser party.

Its grandeur gave Wayne a notion to clean up the estate’s large
great room floor, much of its floor tile still intact for a cruiser party.We did not act on that notion.Nor were we inspired to add to the
graffiti photographer Jim Austin (click here to view
Jim’s work) craftily dubbed “love letters.”

The estate tile was still in

surprisingly good shape.

Apparently we saw the “cleaned up” version of the estate.Developer Cypress Equities, which Roger Staubach and Jack Nicklaus also invested in, cleaned up the
site, to support their new and more wide sweeping Royal Island Montage Hotel and Resorts vision….

The plans
included an ultra-luxury resort, and private club residential community with
private residences and homesites, a golf club with a Nicklaus-approved golf
course, a 200-slip marina and a boutique hotel, spa and three beach clubs.

Despite a promising start,
with 22 properties sold for $150 million, in 2008 the plans were scuttled.We did find signs of attempts to
rebound or at least recoup some island investment; lots for sale with
waterfront decks with chairs overlooking a genuinely spectacular ocean view.Indeed, a 2013 article claims development
efforts are being “rebooted” on Royal Island (click
here for article).

For us, Royal Island simply
provided a pleasant place to anchor for free in a safe harbor, an interesting
spot to explore while we waited for the right weather window to make the 50+
mile sail up to the Abacos.We
were not alone; there were 18 boats in the relatively small anchorage and the
only one that didn’t leave the day we did was grounded.

Wayne wanders down to the Royal Island oceanside deck on this for Sale lot.

From there, stone-carved steps dropped down to this beachless ocean property.

May 15, 2014 BAHAMAS.This is a recent retrospective of our
stopover May 5 on Royal Island (N25. 30.807 W76.50.884), Eleuthera,
BAHAMAS.We are currently anchored
in Black Sound, Green Turtle Cay, Abacos, BAHAMAS (N26.45.592 W77.19.458).We’re awaiting a calm day to
temporarily hand-stitch our mainsail, which tore on an otherwise benign
crossing through Whale Cut Passage.We
plan to enjoy the Abacos until the next logical weather window arrives to cross
the Gulf Stream back to Florida; which currently looks most likely in a week.

1 comment:

Thanks for the link to my work. I'm working on a book called Ruins on the Rocks, about the abandoned Bahamas, and this and my other fine art eBooks are at. www.jimages.com, a site that includes my pro wedding, event and commercial photography. Safe sails. Jim